About Center for Open Recovery

Center for Open Recovery (COR) is leading the charge to end the stigma of addiction by empowering people in recovery to step out of the shadows of shame and be open about their lives in recovery. By doing so, we demystify recovery, shatter negative stereotypes about addiction, shift the public’s understanding about long-term treatment outcomes, integrate our identity, and inspire greater investment, advocacy and support to tackle the disease.

COR is working to remove the barriers that keep millions of people, who have recovered, invisible and silent, while reaching the millions more who are suffering with shame in isolation and are dying from lack of understanding and care.

COR has been an independent nonprofit based in San Francisco, working for six decades in the Bay Area to reduce the impact and consequences of alcoholism and other substance use disorders. With a long history as an affiliate of The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, COR had been focused primarily on the prevention and intervention realms of addressing the disease. Over a past three years, given the growth of the opioid overdose and addiction epidemic in our country, COR undertook an extensive analysis of the addiction/recovery treatment sector and audited our internal capabilities to determine what needs were not being addressed and how we could more effectively respond to the crisis at hand.

We evolved our purpose, structure, mission and name upon recognizing the lack of resources available to support on-going recovery (efforts nationally are primarily focused on short-term crisis intervention). Deeply entrenched structural, social and personal stigma have contributed to the lack of investment, education, understanding, innovation and ultimately responses designed to help people impacted by addiction. COR has repositioned itself to do just that — tackle stigma and champion recovery. We do this today with a new operational model. We no longer provide direct services to individuals (all prior clients have been able to find other local providers), more are we “competing” with other non-profits for clients & funding — but rather we operate as a virtual organization offering education, advocacy and empowering experiences designed to tackle stigma and publicly build support for long-term recovery.

Over the past few years, COR introduced the paradigm of ‘Open Recovery’ – as a proud identity, a call for social justice, an affront to stigma, and as a shared community value to help people impacted by addiction live with dignity, support and hope. Open Recovery has begun to inspire change in the ways we identify, understand and respond to addiction and recovery in the Bay Area and beyond.

Mission
Center for Open Recovery champions long-term recovery by ending the stigma of addiction.

Our Vision
Center for Open Recovery envisions a world where there is freedom from addiction. A world where the people impacted by addiction have the resources, freedom and support necessary to create and maintain a vibrant life in recovery.